


All Tied Up

by recoveringrabbit



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, I saw a need and I filled it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 18:02:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6576847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/pseuds/recoveringrabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jemma's sartorial throwback has brand-new results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Tied Up

Over their years together, Jemma has grown used to Fitz staring at her. So used, in fact, that she has developed a classification system: blank stares signifying she just happens to be in his line of vision as he thinks; beseeching ones pleading for favors; urgent ones when he expects her to read his mind; tender, devoted ones as if he cannot quite believe she exists. She treasures each of them. Even the more irritating ones are still _his_ for _her_ , and she doesn’t take them for granted.

That said, if he doesn’t quit this particular stare instantly, she may hurl something at him.

Peeking over her computer monitor, she barely refrains from rolling her eyes. Every single time she’s glanced up today he’s been there, his chin resting in his hand, his eyes fixed in front of him until he catches her looking and pretends like he’s been working this whole time. He hasn’t, though. She can feel his gaze like the sun on an August day, and she knows. Also, she’s been checking every few minutes, just to be certain. It’s been very distracting.

After the twelfth time she has to restart her analysis, she slams her pen down on the desk and marches over to his station. “Have I got something on my shirt?” she demands.

His eyes dart over her white shirt and cranberry cardigan hastily. “No. . . ?”

“Then why, pray tell, do you seem to find it so intriguing?”

“It’s not that,” he stammers.

“Ugh, Fitz, you haven’t stopped staring at it since I walked in the lab this morning! Are you staring at my—” She stops, flushing, and the red flies into his face as well.

“No! No, for heaven’s sake, I’m not—I hope you don’t think—”

She throws her hands and her eyebrows into the air. “Well, what then?”

Putting one hand on the back of his neck, he becomes very interested in the corner of his keyboard. “It’s not the _shirt_ ,” he says. “It’s the tie.”

“My tie?” she repeats, surprised. “I’ve worn ties before, Fitz. I wear them all the time.”

He shakes his head, leaning back in the chair and holding up two fingers. “First, you don’t wear them _all the time_. When was the last time you wore one at all?”

Her retort dies on her lips. When _was_ it? Before Maveth, certainly. Possibly, now she comes to think of it, before the first fall of SHIELD. Glancing down, she considers and relents. “All right, so it’s been a bit. But you didn’t stare this much when I started wearing colors again. You didn’t even notice.”

“I did!”

“Fitz, you—”

“Just because I don’t—”

“—literally said ‘oh is that what’—”

“ ‘—is making your hair look so shiny,’ I think.”

“Irrelevant,” she says, but she bites back a smile anyway.

He shoots her _a look_ and waggles the second finger. “Second, it’s not exactly your tie, is it?”

Aha.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he says, leaning forward on crossed arms and blinking up at her innocently, “which, of course, I never am, but the tie you’re wearing is, as a matter of fact, _my_ rocket ship tie, isn’t it?”

“Can you really call it yours when you haven’t worn it in years?” she tries, to no avail.

“Yeah, you gave it to me at Sci-Ops, and I’m pretty sure that a gift, once given, doesn’t revert back to its owner.” He flicks the end of it between his finger and thumb. “Even though I haven’t seen it since. . . ”

Ducking her head, she fills in the blank. He hasn’t seen it since several weeks after the nine longest days of her life ended, when she collected his ties from his room and stuffed them into the back of her closet, unwilling to leave them there to taunt him but unable to let them go forever. She had thought at the time that he might want them again someday; maybe he would have, if she had been here when he underwent his latest clothing metamorphosis, but his current style doesn’t allow for them. And she misses them. Perhaps that was why she had reached for her favorite one this morning.

His fingers play over the silk idly, waiting quietly for her to respond. When she doesn’t, he tugs the end once before speaking, lips set firmly in the line that means he thinks he’s being amusing. “The rocket ships are tiny. I had to verify my hypothesis.”

This time she doesn’t bother to hide her eyeroll. “You could have asked, for goodness’ sake, rather than staring at me like a filthy man in the back of a van. Yes, I’m wearing your tie.”

“Well, that hardly seems fair.”

Already on her way back to her station, she stops to raise an eyebrow. “Not fair? I can’t wear a tie that you forgot you even had?”

He pushes out of his seat and trails her to her desk, folding his arms and leaning his hip against the edge of the counter. “You’re not a rocket scientist. The tie is a badge of honor amongst my brethren.”

“It’s a novelty tie, Fitz. I think it cost ten dollars.”

“I’m just saying, it seems kind of wrong that you—”

“So say I’m wearing the colors of my hero.”

She says it casually, more concentrated on her work than her words; he is her hero, and he knows it by now, and the whole thing is very straightforward.

“Then,” he says, and he is strangely out of breath and she looks up sharply, “then I need one, too. With microbes on it. Or beakers.”

Sometimes he takes her breath away, with his beautiful heart and the way he lets it shine through his eyes. As though they weren’t already beautiful enough. She puts down her pipette and turns to him, resting her hand over his in the crook of his elbow. “Now, Fitz,” she says, keeping her voice much lighter than the weight of her gaze, “you know that’s not how it works. At most I can give you an handkerchief.”

He twists his hand just enough to grip the tips of her fingers. “Since when have we acquiesced to stereotypical gender roles?”

“You’re right.”

“Naturally.”

“May I keep yours if I promise to purchase you a new one as soon as I’m done today?”

He considers it, screwing his face up to examine the ceiling. “I suppose.”

“Good.” Pushing up on her tiptoes, she busses his cheek quickly before pulling her hand away. “But you have to let me work, then.”

He nods obediently, still shining, but makes no move to go back to his desk. The staring, she realizes with an inward groan, has resumed.

“Was there something else, Fitz?” she asks, very intentionally darting her gaze over his shoulder.

Shuffling forward, he leans in and lowers his voice. “It wasn’t the rockets.”

“What wasn’t?”

“Why I was staring. I recognized the tie this morning.”

She waits for him to continue. He does not.

“Why were you staring, then, Fitz?”

Taking the tie in one hand, he stares down at the rockets and speaks quickly. “It was making me remember the Bus. You used to wear ties on the Bus and it drove me crazy.”

She blinks several times, turning fully to match his position against the desk. “You didn’t—on the Bus. We weren’t—”

He is already shaking his head. “I didn’t let myself be, but I was. Things happened, Jemma, you know how fast your mind works—I couldn’t help myself, sometimes, even if I shoved it away the next second.”

“What—” She clears her throat, not certain the answer to her next question will be appropriate to their place of work. “What happened? In your mind. Obviously, nothing actually happened.”

“This,” he says, and wraps the tie around his hand and pulls her to him in one swift motion. His mouth is eager and sweet when it fits over hers; his free hand comes up to push her hair behind her ear and send shivers down her neck. Bus Fitz wouldn’t have been so smooth, she has enough time to think before his kiss drives conscious thought to the hinterlands. But then again Bus Jemma would have been too startled to properly enjoy it. Present Jemma, however, has no such problem, and cups her hands around his jaw to keep him right where he is.

A noise from the hallway makes them jump apart, both hearts racing and lips curved into grins. “Well,” Jemma says, “that was a good idea you had. Then. And now.”

He looses her reluctantly, patting the tie as it falls back across her stomach. “I like you wearing my tie.”

“I like wearing your tie, too,” she whispers. “Fitz, hand me my phone.”

Reaching behind him without taking his eyes off her, he puts it in her hand curiously. “Why?”

She puts in her passcode and pulls up Amazon. “I’m ordering your new tie _right now_. Turn and turn about is fair play.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just adored the rocket ship tie, which actually cost a great deal more than ten dollars—a _great_ deal. But would Sci-Ops FitzSimmons spend that much on a tie? Doubtful.


End file.
